SHIPS WERE ON COLLISION COURSE

Two foreign containerships were on the same side of the main channel into Hampton Roads when they slammed into each other during a ferocious Sunday thunderstorm, Coast Guard officials said on Monday.

"Both ships were on the northern side of the channel," Coast Guard Capt. Eugene K. Johnson said.

The collision of the outbound Columbus America and the inbound Neptune Jade sent as much as 30,000 gallons of fuel oil spilling into the Chesapeake Bay and Norfolk and Portsmouth harbors. Johnson said the spill will take several days to clean up.

Johnson said it is too early to say how much the cleanup will cost. He said the Columbus America's insurers have agreed to pay the bill.

A Coast Guard investigator said determining why both vessels were on the same side of the Thimble Shoals channel would be a focus of a special Board of Investigation that convenes today.

The Coast Guard will also inquire whether the storm was a factor in the collision, but the investigator said it did not appear to be.

Johnson said the Coast Guard had no idea yet who was at fault.

Marine traffic rules require ships to keep to the right, just as car drivers. That would mean the 800-foot Neptune Jade, traveling inbound along the Thimble Shoals channel into Hampton Roads, belonged in the northern edge of the passage, not the 635-foot Columbus America.

The pilots directing the two ships, Virginia Pilot Association President Richard Counselman and association member J.A. Jones Jr., are also due to testify. Counselman has been a licensed pilot since 1948 and Jones since 1976.

Coast Guard investigators tested the captains, pilots and the members of both ships' crew who were on duty at the time for drugs and alcohol, but test results are not in, Johnson said. Such tests are routine after any ship collision.

The ships collided at 6:48 p.m., about 50 minutes after the Columbus America left Norfolk International Terminals for a three-week voyage to Australia with a mixed cargo of manufactured goods.

After the collision, the Columbus America turned back to Norfolk, leaking oil as it limped in to the Norshipco yard in Norfolk just across from Waterside. It arrived there at about 10 p.m., Johnson said.

Most of the spill leaked during this long, slow passage to the repair yard.

At Norshipco's Pier 1, a fluorescent orange containment collar surrounded the ship Monday afternoon to keep leaking oil from seeping into the river.

The crash destroyed or damaged 25 cargo containers, exposing an assortment of products, said Sven Schmidt, a third mate on the Columbus America.

The collision ripped open one container and spilled some of its contents - Whirlpool washing machines - into the water, he said.

The Neptune Jade, generally undamaged, proceeded to Norfolk International Terminals. She is due to leave this afternoon for Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her cargo, a variety of manufactured goods.

So far, cleanup crews have gathered about 50 garbage bags full of oil-contaminated material from Chesapeake Bay beaches near Little Creek in Norfolk, Johnson said.

Skimmer vessels have collected about 1,500 gallons of oil from the Elizabeth River and Norfolk's inner harbor, Johnson said.

Contamination was moderate to heavy on both shores of the river, he said.

The city of Norfolk posted "No swimming" signs at Community Beach in Ocean View after finding patches of oil had washed ashore. City Beach, near the mouth of Little Creek, was lightly coated with oil. So far, no oil has washed up on Peninsula shores.

Johnson ordered the main shipping channel into Norfolk closed for about four hours as work crews from the Coast Guard, Navy, State Water Control Board and a private contractor worked to clean the channel.

Larry McBride, Tidewater regional director of the water board, told the Associated Press that the spill was one of the largest in the bay since the early 1970s.

Columbus America Third Mate Schmidt, 26, of Hamburg, said the starboard, or right-hand, side of his vessel was heavily damaged for about 300 feet of its 635-foot length.

"I thought lightning had hit the ship or that we had grounded," he said.

Schmidt said the pilots on the ships, whose job is to guide vessels to and from their berths though the harbor channels, had been in contact with one another by radio before the collision.

He said the Columbus America's radar was on.

John Warters, a Newport News businessman who was out in a sailboat during the storm, said he saw the red-hulled Columbus America pass within 100 yards of his vessel, "going at a real good clip.

"Then we saw the gray boat sort of loom out of the fog. It looked like they were going to run into each other. I said that will never happen, but it really did," Warters said.

He estimated that visibility was no more than a quarter of a mile at the time.

Although he said the wind was blowing at about 30 to 35 knots from the north-northwest, Warters said both vessels were running along the up-wind edge of the 1,000-foot wide channel, so the winds shouldn't have forced them to that side of the channel.

Oil still leaked from the ruptured 140,000-gallon fuel tank of the Columbus America on Monday evening.

Johnson said divers have been unable to plug the hole.

The ship and its cargo containers were so badly damaged that shipyard workers have been unable to clear a way to lower pumps into the fuel tank to remove the oil that remains there.

The ship was carrying "at least a dozen and a half different hazardous materials, mostly paint and flammables ... but they have all been accounted for," said Petty Officer Rick Woods, a Coast Guard Marine Safety Office spokesman.

Ann Hayward Walker, an NOAA scientific coordinator, said she has been unable to find any shellfish beds affected by the spill.

Fishermen might have to watch for oil sheen on the water, she said. The oil could coat fish as they are hauled from the water.

About 50 mallard ducks around the Elizabeth River were coated by oil, as well, and Johnson said the Coast Guard was worried that oil might drift into the sensitive marshlands of Lynnhaven Inlet.

State Attorney General Mary Sue Terry noted in a press release that the spill occurred just hours after oil spill legislation she proposed, which puts greater responsibiltiy for spill cleanup on vessel owners, became law.

The West German-flag Columbus America, built in 1971, was due in Melbourne at the end of the month.

The 800-foot Neptune Jade, operated by the state-owned Neptune Orient Line of Singapore, was in the middle of an eastbound round-the-world voyage.

The ship, built in 1986 and capable of carrying 22,000 tons of cargo, was essentially undamaged and is due in Nova Scotia on Wednesday.